Every year, commercial negotiations take place between agri-food companies (from small charcuterie producers to giants Unilever, Nestlé or Coca-Cola) and their supermarket clients (E.Leclerc, Carrefour, Intermarché or Système U) (AFP/Archives/Charly TRIBALLEAU)
Commercial negotiations between large retailers and their agro-industrial suppliers on shelf prices ended Wednesday evening in an atmosphere still tense by the angry movement of farmers worried about their income.
The agricultural crisis is pushing the State to be particularly attentive to these discussions between manufacturers and traders of consumer products.
During his general policy speech to the National Assembly on Tuesday, Gabriel Attal mentioned the General Directorate of Competition, Consumption and Fraud Repression (DGCCRF), whose inspectors ensure that the contracts that must be signed before Wednesday midnight, large retailers and their agro-industrial suppliers respect the legal framework.
“As of last week, 100 additional DGCCRF inspectors began their checks on the ground, which will be twice as numerous as before,” he declared in particular.
Solidaires CCRF & SCL, the first union within this service dependent on the Ministry of the Economy, put the scale of these controls into perspective on Monday by recalling that the DGCCRF had lost 1,000 agents (from 3,656 agents in 2007 to 2,624 at the end of 2021, according to him) in 15 years and that a little over a hundred agents had to control “several tens of thousands of operators”, including more than 17,000 agro-industrialists.
Every year, commercial negotiations take place between agri-food companies (from small charcuterie producers to giants Unilever, Nestlé or Coca-Cola) and their supermarket clients (E.Leclerc, Carrefour, Intermarché or Système U). They must agree on the conditions of sale for a large part of the products sold in supermarkets the rest of the year.
The purchase price by supermarkets from manufacturers, the place allocated to products on the shelves and a possible promotional calendar are thus decided.
– Advanced negotiations this year –
Negotiations usually end on March 1 but were brought forward this year by the government which hoped that wholesale price reductions for certain foods would be reflected more quickly on the shelves.
The situation remains “complicated” between the parties a few hours before the end of the negotiations “because there is less time”, estimated Wednesday early in the evening Jean-Philippe André, president of the main representative organization of agro- industrial, Ania.
Inflation in France (AFP/Samuel BARBOSA, Sophie RAMIS)
“The context has changed a lot in the space of four or five months,” he added: in July, the priority was to “lower” prices but for a week, it has been “respecting agricultural raw materials “.
Professionals have warned that we should not expect massive or widespread price drops, while the basket of French people in supermarkets costs them on average 20% more than two years ago. It seems very unlikely that the rate reductions will be of a magnitude comparable to these increases.
“No one yet knows the result” of the negotiations and only a third of the contracts have been signed to date, said Wednesday on France Info Richard Pancquiault, the general director of Ilec which represents the voice of very large industrialists in France. He expects “decreases”, but “the majority of products will be up slightly”.
“We will end up with a 2 or 3% increase” in prices on average at the end of discussions with large suppliers, said Jacques Creyssel, general delegate of the FCD which represents large-scale distribution, Wednesday morning on Radio Classic.
Jean-Philippe André de l’Ania predicts that we will have “more of a tendency towards deflation” with prices falling by around 1%.
Any average estimates of price increases (or decreases) do not allow us to assume the level of inflation on the shelves of supermarkets, since it is the distributors who set the price charged to consumers, more or less cutting into their margins. .
It may be difficult to welcome price reductions in the midst of anger among agricultural professionals. Some organizations, starting with the FNSEA, have criticized the government for focusing too much on combating soaring prices on supermarket shelves, rather than on preserving farmers’ income.
The latter is, however, theoretically better protected by several laws adopted in recent years, provided that the authorities are able to detect, control and fine any possible breaches.
© 2024 AFP
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